


[Scarlet 01] Silence, Exile and Cunning

by cyberanima



Series: A Study in Scarlet [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-08-17
Updated: 1995-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyberanima/pseuds/cyberanima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church; and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can, using for my defen(s)e the only arms I will allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning."<br/>-James Joyce, PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Characters from the X-FILES used without permission, to no profit or benefit. All original material herein copyright 1995 by Lori L. Bloomer. All rights remain reserved by the author. The author freely grants permission for this story to be reposted or archived at will, so long as the author's name is retained in connection with the work.

**SEPTEMBER 19, 1995**  
8:53 PM  
A DARK ROOM  
WASHINGTON, DC

 Scarlet stared straight ahead. She'd heard the litany before from others in the Federal Bureau of Investigations, questioning her about illicit computer activity from her dorm room at Georgetown. At first she'd been scared to death when they'd caught her hacking government files, but after six different sessions of questioning with six different people, she was bored, quite frankly. She almost wished they'd send her to jail and get it over with.

She watched the handsome black man as he paced around the dark room, recounting her crimes for her benefit. She did not know his name. She hadn't been introduced to him. All she knew was that he'd entered the room after the last agent left.

"Scarlet," he said, in an uncompromising, rich tone, "Are you listening to me?"

"Yessir," she said, trying to keep the petulance from her voice. She summed the situation in a pair of even-toned sentences. "I'm accused of having broken into federal records that were classified. This is considered an act of potential espionage."

"Accused?" The man looked almost amused behind his beard. "You were *caught*, Scarlet."

Scarlet regarded him curiously, innocently. "I was?"

"Don't play the fool with me." His voice was coldly homicidal. Scarlet blinked. This man was dangerous, she knew. He went on, seeing that he'd gained her attention. He walked closer, his dark eyes capturing hers. She saw no mercy at all behind his gaze, and she shuddered. He ignored her reaction and continued. "If you decide to work with me, I'll make sure you're never accused of those crimes."

"Work with you. Doing what?" There it was, she mused. Out in the open. Bribery. Hell, she told herself, I can be bribed when it's the rest of my life that's at stake.

"Sharing what you've learned," he said. "First with me. Then as I direct, with another that I know. Only as much as I allow."

He looked at her unprepossessing appearance: a twenty-something young woman with dyed black hair, pale skin, and bright red lipstick, dressed in distressed jeans and a loose sweater. Strange how the ones who look so unassuming always turn out to be the most trouble, he thought, bringing to mind another he knew.

Scarlet swallowed hard and nodded, feeling very small and very frightened. She began to tell him all that she had found.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 21, 1995**  
1:24 PM  
WASHINGTON, DC

Scarlet sat down once more, waiting for the intimidating man to brief her. She didn't like him, but she was growing used to the way he made her feel--paranoid and more than a little bit intimidated.

She was almost disappointed when a thirtyish man in a suit entered, a nondescript sort of fellow. He was of average height and build, dressed in a lightweight grey suit. She glared at him and shrugged, reaching into her bag and fishing out a compact. She flipped out a tube of lipstick, applied a fresh coat, and then drawled, "Yeah?"

He answered, "Got your instructions. You know who they're from." He held out a hand to her. She studied it, and then shook it. He smiled, as if he enjoyed speaking in double-talk because it impressed civilians.

Scarlet was unimpressed. She noticed he didn't give his name, but made no comment. "Okay, let's hear it."

"Contact the target tomorrow. The means of contact are in this envelope, as is the information you're to pass along."

"Got it." She took the envelope, sealed with a wax mark. She recognized the mark from the previous night, when the other man had showed it to her. She did not open it, just slipped it inside her leather jacket.

The nondescript man raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you gonna read it?"

"Nope. It's either there, or I'm fucked." She shrugged. "But he'd want me to check it out alone."

"An informer," he said, with the small smile of a cat toying with a tasty rodent, "I thought all you computer hackers believed in freedom of information and all of that."

She replied, in an unimpressed voice, "I do."

His condescending smirk no longer even made a pretense at friendliness. "But by cooperating with us, you're selling out, aren't you?"

Her tone was pure disgust. "I never bought in. I'm not an anarchist."

"No, just a fruitcake," he added, with mild amusement.

"Are we gonna do the verbal waltz all day, or are you gonna let me go so I can do my grocery shopping?," Scarlet retorted, bored and irritated. Goddamn pinhead, she thought, playing power games.

"Yes," he said, satisfied, "That's what he said to pass on for now. And Scarlet, one more thing--?"

"Mm-hmm?" She played it casual, but felt the bile rising inside her. She wanted nothing more than to smash in that smug, arrogant, nondescript face.

"Don't play games. He said he knows that you know a lot more than you like people to think."

"Huh?," she quipped, annoyed, "You lost me three verbs back." Fucking jerk, she fumed silently.

"You know what I said. Goodbye, Scarlet." He left the room, the same little smirk plastered in place. Scarlet kicked the chair over and stalked out.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 24, 1995**  
6:41 PM  
A SMALL STUDIO APARTMENT  
WASHINGTON, DC

Twelve-bar blues emitted mutedly from the stereo. The room was furnished in Early Milk Crate, with an occasional IKEA expenditure. It was a small place and somebody had to furnish it. She didn't do well. A poster detailing an Intel microprocessor schematic was taped to the wall above a table littered with computer parts.

Scarlet fed the single sheet of laser-printed paper into the fax machine and hit the SEND button...

 

 **SEPTEMBER 24, 1995**  
6:41 PM  
THE J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING  
WASHINGTON, DC

Spring cleaning was hell.

Special Agent Fox Mulder was knee-deep in file folders, arranged in a system only he could understand. Of course, being eidetic didn't hurt matters when he was looking for the paperwork from a three-year-old case. His desk was covered with teetering piles of paper.

Cold coffee stagnated in a Star Trek mug on his desk. The mug had been a joke gift from Special Agent Dana Scully, his partner and (in the rare moments when he would admit it) his only friend. The design on the ceramic surface was a logo for the Vulcan Science Academy. After catching a glimpse of the contents of the mug, he concluded that the logo was appropriate--what was inside the mug very well might grow up to be a new wonder-drug.

The fax machine made the loud whining noise that signified a connection. The sound was so loud against the relative quiet of the room that Mulder looked up from his file folder, almost sliding backwards off his chair in the process.

"What the...?" He was only mildly curious, but boredom made him walk over to the fax machine and pick up the single sheet, its slippery paper rendering the image streaky and hard to read. The words were simple:

MEET ME AT THE NORTH ENTRANCE TO THE SMITH AT 10 PM. I HAVE INFORMATION FOR YOU. WE HAVE SOME MUTUAL ALLIES.

The note was unsigned. He folded it carefully into a pocket. "Jeez. I haven't had a secret admirer since fourth grade," he told himself, then smiled a bit sheepishly at the fact that he was talking to himself.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 24, 1995**  
10:02 PM  
THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM  
WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder stepped out of the car and walked toward the entrance of the museum. He'd changed into jeans and a loose sweatshirt before coming. His thinking was, even if it was a set-up, at least if he wasn't wearing a suit, they'd assume that he wasn't the right man for just long enough for him to escape.. and besides, it was a lot easier to run in Nikes than wing-tips.

He mused on the possibilities and was both fascinated and wary. Another informant. Another potential source for the small bits of The Truth--and he thought of it in just that way, in capital letters, a very proper noun, in the same way that one always capitalized the H in "he" when speaking of God.

Some part of him wished he'd called Scully, asked her to come along, but another part told him that if he hadn't come alone, his soon-to-be-benefactor would have turned tail before he'd so much as said hello. Sighing, he feathered a hand through his spiky brush of hair and walked to the entrance, casually.

A young woman appeared from behind him, dressed in faded jeans, her black hair obviously dyed. She was kind of cute in a pillowy sort of way, he observed, watching her move. Until she stepped close, it never occurred to him that she might be the one.

Scarlet looked at the tall, slim man before her and swallowed hard. She felt the tension knotting inside her, and decided to plunge in before nerves made her run away.

She stepped over to him and slipped a hand into the crook of his arm. Laughing, she stood on her tiptoes--for she was no more than five feet four inches, and he was probably six feet tall, she surmised--and whispered, "Play along. It's me. I'm the one who sent the fax."

Mulder almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. This rumpled girl was the one? Then he thought of the Lone Gunmen, and it didn't seem so absurd any longer.

"Hey, long time no see, guy. You owe me dinner," she said aloud, her voice cheerful and teasing.

Mulder found his voice and played along nicely: "Yeah. It's been a long time, hon. Too long. Come on, where do you want to go?" He slipped an arm around her shoulders, too easily, and she said, "I know a great place a few blocks away. Come on..."

As they walked, she muttered to him, "Don't lose yourself in the part, Agent Mulder."

"I'll try to restrain myself," he noted, with a wry expression. "So who are you?" He whispered back.

"Scarlet," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder and looking, to all intents and purposes, like a co-ed in love, "I was sent by someone you know. He said to tell you it was X and you'd know who he was."

"X," he said, evenly. That bastard. Mister X was somewhere between ally and adversary--even Mulder wasn't quite sure which. X had given him some of the best information he'd ever had, but Mulder suspected that Mr. X might be as much a product of the conspiracy as he himself was. Mulder still wasn't sure how much of Mister X was a free man and how much was a mere tool.

"Yeah," she said. "I have some things for you."

"All right, what?"

"Hold on." She slipped an arm around his waist playfully and he felt something sliding into his front jeans pocket.

"Hey, what kind of guy do you think I am?," he quipped with the lazy smile that was far more charming than he realized.

"I dunno. Maybe all those subscriptions to dirty magazines should say something about it." She giggled. He was kind of cute, even with the super-short hair, she thought. She still had no idea why the information was so important to him. She knew why *she* had sought it out, but this g-man...?

Mulder frowned. How the hell did she know about the magazines? He was all set to come back with a quick rejoinder, but then he realized that whatever she'd shoved into his pocket, it was still there, and her hand wasn't. It felt small and flat. A floppy disk, he ascertained after a moment.

"Just who the hell are you, Scarlet?," he asked.


	2. Chapter 2

His patience was waning. He was being played for a fool again, he was convinced. His arm dropped from her shoulders.

"Just... just someone who knows things. *Some* things," she adds, hastily. She looked nervous, tense. This was a new experience to her, and she was convinced she'd botched it completely, clever ruse notwithstanding. "I'm just out there. I can't tell you more than that."

"Why not?," Mulder demanded, a challenge in those hazel eyes despite the low, almost caressing tone of voice. "Why can't you tell me? Whose side are you on?"

" _My_ side," she said, her voice quiet and panicky. This guy was a real bastard, she observed to herself. The cute ones almost always were. "Please. Don't force this out of me. I'm not lying to you. I just need to keep myself out of this."

"You're _in_ this," he growled back. Mulder's temper was getting short. The mysteries, the lies, the half-truths of the past, all wound together in his mind. She could be anyone. She could have been sent by Cancer Man, or worse. "You're in this now, goddamnit, so don't say you want to stay out of it."

"I didn't choose this--!" She stared at him, her dark eyes unfathomable. He glared back, granting no quarter. They'd sent a girl after him, probably assuming her age and apparent incompetence would set him off guard. Well, Mulder told himself, I trust no one. Not this girl. Not Mister X. Nobody...

The image of Dana Scully's face came to mind, and he amended the thought: Nobody but Scully. His thoughts were disrupted by her next words:

"Just read what I gave you. If you need me, you can get me through this..." She handed him a small card with a toll-free phone number on it. Her voice dropped, became gentler, less angry. "That's my pager. It's alphanumeric, so you can send messages. Just be careful, okay? Or it's both our asses in a sling. _Please_."

He took the card and stared at it for a long moment, committing the number to memory, and then handing it back to her. "Keep it. Better for both of us that way, right?" He tried on a wry smile and found its fit a bit off.

Scarlet nodded. "Yeah. Much." She led him around a corner. The street was deserted. She turned to walk away. Mulder didn't stop her. Looking up, she added, "I'll talk to you soon," and slipped into the alley, taking a back route away.

Mulder watched her walk, then fingered the diskette in his pocket. He made a decision and slipped into the night's long shadows...

 

 **SEPTEMBER 24, 1995**  
11:31 PM   
MULDER'S APARTMENT

After a slight detour, Mulder had gained a bit more information. Now he felt like he might have a lever, now... something to bargain with, if it came down to it.

Mulder clicked on the TV and VCR, then slid into the chair before his computer and flicked it on impatiently. While the system booted up, he fast-forwarded with a look of amusement through a rather lurid scene involving two blondes, a garden hose, and a salad shooter.

Slipping the floppy into the drive, he clicked it open and read its directory of contents. His eyes widened. He crouched over the chair, a predator about to strike, and delved into the data...

"Holy Christ," he whispered, staring at the screen.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 25, 1995**  
9:10 AM   
THE J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING   
WASHINGTON, DC 

Special Agent Dana Scully entered the office in a rather chipper mood for a Monday morning. Mulder had promised to clean up the office files this weekend, so she was looking forward to seeing what the X-Files office looked like when it _wasn't_ a classic model of chaos incarnate.

The office was completely immaculate. Scully grinned--at least for the moment. Carrying a wonderful-smelling paper cup with a double cappuccino in one hand and a freshly-baked almond croissant in the other, she almost dropped her breakfast when she got a good look at Mulder's face.

He had dark circles that would have been comical if it were anyone else but him. His eyes bore a weary, distant exhaustion. None of that would have concerned her so much had she not noticed the expression of utter confusion that twisted his mouth.

"Mulder...?" Scully walked closer and said, "Are you okay? You didn't stay up all night with the files, did you? You didn't have to do _that_ much..."

"No, Scully," Mulder said, in that soft, terrible tone that told her just how scared he was, "People call me paranoid. If anything, I was an optimist compared to what's really out there."

She blinked and put down her burdens, walking directly to his side. Her jewel-like blue eyes shone with concern. "Mulder, what happened...?"

"Not here," he said, hoarsely.

"Let's go for a walk. Come on. We'll get you some coffee. You look like you need it." She sounded genuinely concerned, and her first thought was, Dear God, what happened here this weekend? Mulder looked like a whipped dog, and that fact alone frightened her more than any ten conspiracies could.

"Thanks, Scully," he joked weakly, "Nice to know I can always count on you to brighten my day."

"Mulder..." She began, and then stopped. She picked up her breakfast and motioned toward the door with an elbow. "Come on."

They made their way outside, and she steered him toward her car. Once inside, she said, "All right, Mulder. Tell me what happened."

Mulder reached inside his suit jacket and handed her a folded sheaf of papers, a surprisingly small sheaf. Scully took the papers and began to read... after about five minutes, she had to tear her eyes away from the papers. Whoever had fed this information to Mulder hadn't done him a great service.

When her eyes met his, he seemed older, sadder. She wondered if she did, too. She wasn't sure she could believe the farfetched claims in these sheets of paper, but she could certainly understand why they had this sort of effect on Mulder.

"Scully, they've been hiding it all because they're a _part_ of it," he intoned, in the same terrible, doom-laden voice, the anger making him louder. "Look at this! The net result of these papers is that any abductions up to a certain quota are acceptable, as long as there's nobody _crucial_ involved. This is a license to kidnap and torture, Scully! This is a license to vivisect human beings! And those bastards... those bastards let it happen--!"

" _If_ it's true, Mulder. Which I doubt. Think about it. How far-fetched is this stuff? I'd say it's pretty implausible. Now wait, before you say anything." Scully tried not to think about the missing three months of her own life, the three months she could not remember at all.

Mulder looked as if he were about to object vehemently. She held up a hand to silence him. "There are a number of other possibilities. One, the information was faked and leaked to you accidentally. Two, someone's testing you, to see how far you'll go. Three, someone's trying to bait you. Draw you out in the open so they have an excuse to discredit you."

Mulder sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. He was developing a hell of a headache.

"Didn't that ever occur to you, Mulder?" Scully asked, gently.

"Yeah. It did. Either way... either they're true, and things are much worse than I thought, or they're not true, and someone's trying to destroy what little credibility Spooky' Mulder has left." His voice was bitter and harsh; he couldn't force it to be anything else. His hazel eyes bore the bright light of his belief, dulled now by the realization that no matter which way he turned in this scenario, he was bound to lose.

"That's not like you," Scully told him, her voice soft. She divided the croissant in halves and offered him one. He accepted it, nibbling absently, his expression that of a man lost. She sipped the cappuccino, watching his face, then began, "Mulder, I've never known you to give up. Not when there's something out there to find. Even this. If it's true... if it's true, you should know. If it's false, you need to know who's setting you up. Who gave this to you?"

"A girl who says she works for my other source. She says her name is Scarlet, but I doubt it's her real name." Mulder bit his lip. "She gave this diskette to me. There's lots more where this came from, Scully," he said, holding up the papers as punctuation. He still looked anguished, but Scully noticed he had become more animated the moment she'd nudged him. "I have it all on a floppy," he finished. He ate the last bite of his half of the croissant.

"Let me see it," Scully suggested, biting into her half of the flaky pastry.

"I don't know, Scully. I mean... I probably already told you too much. I don't want to put you on the line too..."

"Mulder!" Scully stared him down. "I'm your partner. I'm already on the line, and I am *more* than capable of taking care of myself. I *want* to help." She put down the coffee cup, her blue eyes meeting his.

"I know, Scully," Mulder murmured, "I know you do. Just let me find out who she is. I just need to find out who she's working for..."

Scully nodded, unsatisfied but resigned. At least he was going to do something about it. She had every intention of assuring that he would be safe, though she certainly wasn't intending to tell *him* that. He didn't need to know unless things got desperate.

She thought of the way he chased Duane Barry, the desperation with which he'd sought her return, and she knew that she could do no less for him. In Dana Scully's ordered, organized life, Fox Mulder was a walking free radical who changed everything. It was only lately that she began to realize that she didn't mind the changes.

He matters, she told herself with finality. More than anything.

"Leave the diskette with me," she suggested. "I won't read it. You can come back and pick it up when you get your answers from this Scarlet person."

And that way, she thought, in words that remained unspoken, even if something does happen to you, you won't die in vain. That's the least I can do for you.

She hated herself for even contemplating his death, but realism won out over sentiment. If Mulder lived a full lifespan, she would be very surprised. It was now that she began to see how much of a loss that would be for her, as well.

Mulder's eyes cleared, the green tints in them growing more evident as he studied her face. Dana Scully was possibly the strongest, most sensible person he'd ever known. He knew that she wouldn't look at the disk if she promised him she wouldn't. In this world of power, corruption, and lies, she alone could be trusted.

"All right," he nodded slowly. "I'll leave it with you."

Mulder handed her the floppy disk. Scully slipped it into a pocket. Neither spoke of it again for the rest of the day.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 25, 1995**  
8:12 PM   
A SMALL STUDIO APARTMENT  
WASHINGTON, DC

Scarlet nursed a mug of coffee as she typed one-handed. She was scanning the IRC channels, hoping for an interesting group for a nice chat. She'd just located the #Conspiracy channel when the sound of her pager interrupted her stream of consciousness.

She looked at the alphanumeric display:

**202-555-0349**

All right, she thought. Probably Agent Mulder at a pay phone somewhere. Or maybe the X guy. Then the short message scrolling across the LCD readout caught her eye:

**LOOK OUT THE WINDOW**

Scarlet blinked and walked to the window, dreading what she might find. Some lunatic stalker was after her, or maybe someone else had found out about the information she had...

She shuddered and looked out. Mulder waved his fingers at her, a sardonic smile on his face to match the simple, almost mocking gesture.


	3. Chapter 3

Scarlet shuddered and looked out. Mulder waved his fingers at her, a sardonic smile on his face to match the simple, almost mocking gesture.

 "Oh, FUCK." She exhaled a long breath and felt herself beginning to shake. She should have never cooperated with this X guy. As if she had a choice, she reminded herself.

Mulder motioned to the front door of the apartment building. Scarlet nodded and walked over to the door buzzer, letting him in. Her hand reached inside one of the milk crates and withdrew a small 9-millimeter pistol that she tucked under her sweatshirt at the small of her back. She wasn't about to go down without a fight.

Mulder walked up the stairs, her apartment on the north side of the third floor. He'd followed her home the night before at a safe distance, watching as she took two detours, then came straight home. If she was a spy or an operative, she was either terrible, or damned good at looking incompetent.

His hand moved to his jacket. He drew the gun out and secreted it behind the loose folds of his trenchcoat. That hand dangled at his side as he knocked on the door with the other.

Scarlet opened the door, her face awash with fear. "This is a bad thing. You shouldn't be here," she told him, quietly.

Mulder raised an eyebrow. "You should get better lessons at losing a tail. I had no problems following you last night at all. You're new to all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, aren't you?"

Scarlet sighed limply. She moved back to let him in, deciding to at least lull him into a false sense of security. He entered, noting the disorder of the tiny apartment. He stepped over a litter of printouts and kept one hand to his side.

"No," she replied, "I'm no damn good at it at all. I'm not *in* this stuff, I got sucked into it by accident."

"Funny. You looked pretty well *in* it after I read what you gave me," Mulder offered sarcastically.

"You're a funny guy, Agent Mulder." She looked at his concealed hand. "Wanna put the gun away? It's kinda rude to bring a drawn gun into someone's house."

Her voice quavered with the fear; Mulder knew then that she was no expert. He wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted that someone had sent a newbie to work on him.

"Only if you take out the one you've got hidden," he countered. The bulge in her shirt had been obvious to him. He'd been trained to spot a concealed weapon, and she wasn't very good at it.

Scarlet studied his face for a long moment. There was no murderous intent in those intelligent, sad eyes. She wondered idly why he was so sad. She'd tried to hack his personnel records, but had no success. All she'd been able to find was civilian stuff: address, phone number, what mailing lists has his name, and so forth. She knew little of him, aside from the fact that he spent an inordinate amount of money on mail-order materials. His tiny phone bills were evidence of how few friends he had. She reflected for a moment on how much like her own life that summary sounded.

Finally, she said, "Tell you what. I'll put my hands up. You put yours on the table. Then you can take mine. That gives you a prime chance to shoot me if you want. I kinda hope you don't."

Mulder watched her face change, and nodded. She put her hands up, and he placed his own gun on a table away from her, then disarmed her neatly. She'd trusted him this far. That told him that she had no experience in these matters. But if she was such a naif, how did she stumble across the things she'd found...?

Scarlet shivered for a moment as Mulder's hand brushed her back, taking the gun from her. He could have just shot her in the back with her own pistol at that moment, and she tensed, half expecting the bullet.

He didn't shoot. He laid the gun on the table, beside his own.

Scarlet sat down heavily in the desk chair, and her glance caught the screen. Her machine was in the process of automatically logging off. Scarlet had set it to do so after she'd been inactive for five minutes.

Five minutes. The thought sobered her. Only five minutes had passed.

"Now that we've done the social niceties," she cracked, with more bravado and bluster than courage, "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Agent Mulder?"

"I want answers, Scarlet."

"Forty-two," she quipped.

"Funny." He didn't seem amused, for a change. "Who do you work for?"

"I told you," she replied. "I can't tell you more than that. He told me to stay out of it as much as possible. I'm not trying to be obscure. I'm just not *allowed* to talk about it."

Mulder sat down on the couch, his eyes never leaving her face. His tone was a bit more firm this time. "Who do you work for?"

Scarlet looked disgusted. "What, is there a fucking echo in here? I don't know his name. He just told me ‘X,' and that was all."

"Nothing else?, Mulder asked, suspicious.

"Nothing else," she agreed.

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Because you're paranoid?," she offered sarcastically.

"You're not the first person to call me that." Mulder's joke was as flat as his voice. "How in the hell did you know about the magazines? What did they tell you about me?"

Scarlet sipped from the mug and listened. He was on the edge, she told herself, trying to remain calm. "All they told me was the phone and fax numbers how I could reach you. They gave me your name. They told me you were in charge of something called the ‘X-Files.' Said you'd be interested in what I found. That's all I know from them. The rest, I got on my own. And it ain't much.... mostly phone bills and stuff."

"Phone bills?" Mulder blinked. It was a felony to steal information of that type.

"Yeah," she said. "That's how I knew about the magazines. I have your date and place of birth, too, and some of your academic records, but nothing really interesting or sensitive."

Mulder felt his stomach sink. This girl had a good chunk of his life available at her fingertips. "How did you get the information?"

"I'm a hacker," she said, almost proudly. "I can get inside anywhere, given time." She stopped, stared at the man, and closed her eyes. Smart fucking move, Scarlet. Just admit it to an FBI agent. Why not sign a full confession, while you're at it?

"A hacker." Mulder nodded slowly. "That explains it. But why me?"

"I didn't check you out until I was told to talk to you. Then I just did a real simple backgrounder. It's not like I go around butting into people's lives with no reason." She swallowed and licked her lips, reaching for the ashtray and a half-empty pack of Marlboro Reds. She lit one up, not paying attention.

Mulder stared. It's that rat bastard Cancer Man and his black lungs. This is a sign. It's him, sitting here mocking me through this girl. His eyes narrowed, and his whole face took on an aspect of complete fury.

Scarlet looked at him, completely lost. "You okay? What, are you allergic? I can open a window..."

"No," he said, then paused. It might be something completely innocent. It might be a coincidence...

"You want some coffee, Agent Mulder?" She held up her own mug. "I'm getting some for myself. I figured I'd offer. It's fresh. Not bad, either. Kenya beans."

He nodded, following her into the kitchen. He wanted to make damn sure she wasn't putting anything in the coffee. Scarlet seemed oblivious to his thoughts, and poured two cups. Handing one to him, she added, "Milk's in the fridge and the sugar bowl is on the table." Sipping from her own mug, she studied his face.

Mulder took the mug and followed her out, sipping. It tasted fine--nothing but coffee. Damn fine coffee, too, he mused to himself. Finally, he said, simply, "Mulder."

"Huh?" Scarlet looked at him with curiosity in her eyes.

"Mulder. Just call me Mulder."

Scarlet nodded, aware that she had just passed some rite, but she had no idea what it might signify. 


	4. Chapter 4

**SEPTEMBER 25, 1995**  
9:23 PM   
A SMALL COFFEE HOUSE  
WASHINGTON, DC

Muted cool jazz played from the speakers inside the room, and the lighting was somewhat dim. A rack of pastries, both expensive and tempting, were carried on trays by the servers, dressed all in sleek black.

Scarlet and Mulder sat in the booth, crouched over her laptop in a back corner. A cup of coffee and a half-eaten slice of cherry cheesecake sat before her, and she gestured at the screen with her fork. He sipped from his own cup, finishing the last of an éclair.

"You dripped whipped cream and filling on your tie," Scarlet remarked, gesturing with the fork.

Mulder looked down and his face twisted into a sheepish grin. "Yeah. You can dress me up but you can't take me anywhere." He smiled at her, and wiped the tie. She half-grinned back. He looked a lot nicer with a smile, she told herself. It did something to his eyes... Scarlet shook the thought aside, reminding herself that he was at _least_ a decade older than her, and devoured another forkful of cheesecake.

Mulder watched her, wondering what she must have been seeing as she looked at him. Once he'd stopped trying to give her the third degree, she'd turned out to be helpful. Funny, even. She'd explained to him exactly what site had held the files, but told him she didn't dare go back. Mulder didn't need to ask why.

Her eyes moved back to a laptop computer screen, and a cigarette burned in the ashtray in front of her. She picks up the cigarette, drags from it lightly, and points. She leaned over in the manner of a woman whispering sweet nothings, but her words were purely business.

"Look at that one. Nineteen eighty two. Fifty-two subjects. *Subjects*..." she snorted at the word derisively. "All taken from Kansas, all between the ages of eight and thirty. No names, just ages, genders, and other data."

The recitation of data was kept impersonal, and for that she was glad. If she'd had to admit they were people, she might not have been able to control her reactions.

Her eyes meet his for a moment. She had no idea why this good-looking Fed in a suit would want to talk about alien experiments, but then again, she wasn't sure she cared. He was good enough company, and Mister X had told her to do it.... and maybe, just maybe, he might know other things, and maybe _then_ she would find the answers she herself had been seeking.

Mulder looked at the data, his own heart pounding hard in his chest. He thought of Samantha now, rendered in documents like these, perhaps, described as a subject, in terms of height and weight and age and general health.

He closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing them shut against the flood of pain. Feelings of failure washed over him, and his hands started to shake.

Scarlet noticed. Her voice was gentle and rich with understanding as she said, "You okay, Mulder? I know this stuff is really disturbing... I was devastated when I found it."

"Yeah," he nodded, slowly. He was grateful that she'd inadvertently given him an out, a simple explanation. "It _is_ disturbing." He put down the coffee cup in its saucer, sloshing a bit of the caramel-colored liquid onto his fingers in the process.

Samantha...

"I'm fine," he repeated a bit more firmly.

She watched, waiting to see his reaction. She was convinced that he didn't doubt a single word of what she was saying. Maybe this was better luck than she'd imagined...

"Listen," she said, softly. "Give me a week or so, I'll see what else I can dig up. I can't promise much... I'll do what I can," she said, almost melting at the light of determination in his eyes.

"Okay," he said. He was still a bit taken aback by the way their entanglement was developing. She was decidedly not good at intrigue, but she has a very good head for data, and Mulder sensed that she might be a believer, a genuine believer.

Scarlet laughed again, in the manner of a young woman on a date, and said, "I'll be in touch. Take care of yourself."

 _No, I can't do it. Sure I can. Why? Oh, fuck it. It's just to keep up the act,_ she deliberated with herself...

Scarlet leaned over and kissed his cheek, warm lips brushing his five-o'clock-shadowed skin. "Just keeping up appearances," she whispered, turning and leaving. Mulder watched her go, wondering, his fingertips touching his own face, lingering on the small smear of lipstick she'd left as a calling card.

He smiled a bit softly, wondering at her ineptitude in matters of seduction. Was that what she was trying to do? No, he thinks, if they'd sent a woman to seduce me, it wouldn't be a chubby college girl. it would have been a stacked blonde. They don't know me well enough to send me someone like Scarlet.

Never does he identify who 'they' might be... in his heart, he knows.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 27, 1995**  
6:01 AM   
THE GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER

Scarlet was running late. The center was supposed to open at six sharp, and she was still rushing down the corridor. Fumbling the keys from her pocket, she almost dropped the gun. She'd started carrying it after Mulder had showed up at her apartment--if he could find her, it stood to reason that others could, as well.

She clicked open the locks and flipped on the power switch, bringing a hundred workstations to life. She logged in with flying fingers, and went through the opening routine, before she felt the _presence_ of the man standing in the doorway. He closed the door and stepped close to her, leaning over her desk.

"Scarlet," he said, in his low, resonant voice, "I told you to pass him information. Not to get _involved_. Be wise. Don't get involved. He might be gone tomorrow, but if you are wise, you will not be."

She looked into the face of the handsome, terrifying man who held the key to her prison of promise, and felt her hands shaking. She fought her voice into an even murmur. "I'm not involved."

He stared at her for two seconds longer than strictly necessary, and said, "Stay that way."

The man she knew as X turned and walked from the room, leaving Scarlet with more questions than answers. She shivered and mused over the facts she'd found, wondering just how much this man knew of the things she'd found... wondering if he'd had a hand in any of these plots.

She closed her hand around the gun, but felt no safer.

 

 **SEPTEMBER 29, 1995**  
11:21 AM   
THE J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

Mulder stared at the computer screen a bit distractedly. He'd slept badly, as usual, and he and Scully had just returned yesterday from a case in Alabama that had turned out to be a simple routine murder disguised as a cult killing... as if something like murder could ever be simple and routine.

He put the final touches on the report, thinking wryly that Skinner would be thrilled. For once, even Mulder had agreed it was a reasonably mundane case, and had found no evidence to back up the occult connection. Scully had won the bet, and that is why he was writing up the report at this very moment while she sat with her nose firmly buried in the latest Umberto Eco novel.

As he typed away, the cellular phone rang inside his jacket. Distractedly, he fished it out of the pocket and flipped it open, still typing one-handed. "Mulder."

"Tonight. Nine-thirty. In the parking lot of the Macy's." The familiar voice passed along the location, and Mulder simply replied, "Okay."

Scully looked up from her book, curious, as he ended the call. He shook his head, as if to say, not here. She nodded, then raised a single eyebrow in inquisition. Mulder nodded in reply.

Scully sighed heavily. She worried every time Mulder did something like this. _One of these days, he would take the wrong risk, and--_

She stopped herself before the thoughts went too much further. He was a grown man. A trained Federal agent. He could take of himself...

 _..and besides_ , she told herself, _if you think about Mulder dying, you might decide to do something stupid. Like follow him..._

She paused, then stifled the small smile. Mulder would know something was up if she let him see her smiling.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**SEPTEMBER 29, 1995**  
9:25 PM   
MACY'S PARKING LOT   
WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder parked his car. He was beginning to feel like he was on a scavenger hunt--pick up the pieces of government conspiracy, gather them up, try and return to home base before other hunters killed you in hopes of claiming your pieces for themselves...

Maybe I  _am_  paranoid, he mused. His hand checked reflexively. Yup. The gun was still there. He walked further from his car, finding the concrete wall that divided the loading dock from the lot, and slipped behind it.

A figure in a long coat approached slowly. Mulder's wary eyes never left the advancing body.

"It's a dangerous time to be pushing the boundaries, Agent Mulder," the cultured, deep voice said.

"Why did you send her to me?" Mulder demanded, his harsh whisper almost as fierce as his eyes.

"All will be clear. In time." The man's voice was calm. "This is what you've waited years to find. Now, will you know what to do with it?"

"No," Mulder admitted. "I don't."

The man smiled. The smile was not a pleasant or comforting thing; it was a frightening gesture, loaded with irony. "You will," he said, "Or this game is ended. She was sent by me. Her information is good. She is not an 'official channel.' That is all you need to know."

"No--that's not 'all I need to know!' What about the--" Mulder was interrupted when the man he knew as Mister X grabbed his lapels and leaned in close, his face bare inches from Mulder's.

"That is  _all_ , Agent Mulder. Don't test  _my_  boundaries. You'll find the ramifications unpleasant." X released him and walked away, leaving Mulder to watch and wonder if he'd overplayed his hand.

Mulder slowly turned away and began to walk back to his car, lost in thought. He slipped the cellular phone from his jacket pocket and dialed a number he'd committed to memory.

 **SEPTEMBER 29, 1995**  
9:35 PM   
A STUDIO APARTMENT WASHINGTON, DC

Scarlet stared out the window as she sipped from her coffee mug. She was lost for the moment, her aloneness reminding her of how she'd become this way. Flashes of memory clouded her vision for the moment, and she closed her eyes, trying to shut out the recollections.

At times like this, she really wished she had a family to lean on... someone to call. She had so few friends, and her parents--well, best not to think of her parents, she told herself, trying to fix her attention on the television. The movie had begun to bore her already and she'd only been watching for a few minutes.

Onscreen, Tom Cruise asked Brad Pitt if he wanted to live forever. Scarlet muttered in reply, "Not if I have to dress like a reject from Prince's backup band, dude."

This was the moment the phone chose to ring. Scarlet answered it gratefully, pausing Tom and Brad.

"Yeah?"

"Nice way to answer the phone," the familiar, gravelly voice said, with a hint of humor. "I need to talk to you."

"Where?" She asked. Anything beat watching this stupid movie again, she told herself. The only cool part was the end, when Lestat comes back. That was kinda neat. This whole vampire-erotic thing was lost on her, though. To her, they all looked like a bunch of badly-dressed, pretentious jerks.

"There's a diner about ten minutes from you..." Mulder gave her the directions, and she noted them down.

"All right," she told him, "See you there."

 

 **SEPTEMBER 29, 1995**  
10:05 PM   
MOM'S DINER   
WASHINGTON, DC

Scarlet walked into the diner, dark eyes scanning the room for Mulder. She finally spotted him at a back booth, fidgeting with the straw in his iced tea.

"Hey," she said, sliding in across from him, her voice not loud enough to carry. "Real subtle disguise there, Mulder. Nobody would  _ever_  guess you for a Fed."

The expression on Mulder's face was a mixture of annoyance and amusement. Now, he thought, I'm beginning to understand how Scully must feel with  _my_  sense of humor.

"Hi," he said, "Hungry?"

"Nah. But I could nibble on something." Scarlet patted her ample rear with a self-deprecating smile. She wasn't fat, precisely, but she could stand to lose about ten pounds, most of that from her rear end. "Gotta feed the cellulite monster, you know. Are you one of those disgusting people who can eat anything and never gain an ounce?"

"Yeah," he agreed, managing a smile. "But it probably looks better on you anyway."

"Touché," she smiled back, liking the way his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.  _Jesus H. Christ, Scarlet,_ she fumed at herself,  _cut the shit. He doesn't like you. He's using you for your information_. Her face changed to a carefully neutral expression, but Mulder didn't miss the momentary sadness. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you  _never_  eat at a diner called Mom's, or play poker with a man named Slim?"

"Maybe they did," Mulder retorted with a small smile, "but I live dangerously. I even leave the cap off the toothpaste."

The waitress interrupted them. "Can I get you something, miss?"

"Yeah," Scarlet said, "A life would be nice. No, serious, just coffee. And cheesecake, if you have it."

"Blueberry or strawberry?," the woman asked, unfazed.

"Ummm. Blueberry."

The waitress turned to Mulder, "Sir?"

"No thanks. She's eating for the two of us." Oh, geez, Mulder, what made you say that? Now Scarlet probably thinks you think she's fat or something. Women always get neurotic about weight and appearance. The waitress walked away with a nod, and Scarlet looked lost, distant.

"You okay?," he asked, quietly.

"F-Fine," Scarlet stuttered back, distracted. "So, um... what's up?"

Well, here goes nothing, he thought. "How did you wind up working for  _him_?," Mulder asked without preface.

"I..." she stopped. The memories piled one on top of the other, all rushing for her attention: her parents. The need for the truth. the need to find out what had happened, to validate her belief. Questioning her own sanity. The information motherlode she'd found. Men in suits with guns breaking down her door. She shivered visibly, her dark eyes swimming. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?" Mulder's voice was sharper now. He was growing tired of the compromises, the lies, the evasions...

"Because if I do, I'm  _dead_." She stared at him, her lower lip quivering in a mixture of fear and defiance. "And I don't care who you are, I'm not throwing my life away for you."

Mulder blinked. He hadn't thought she was so desperate, but knowing the way things worked, he could easily believe that Scarlet was stuck in a very unenviable position indeed. He felt a pang of guilt, wondering what this girl could have done that had launched her into the throne of agony in which she now sat. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Forget it," she told him, "It's just part of the background noise nowadays. No big thing." Her expression made the words a lie, but Mulder wasn't quite ready to call her on it. "Now what do you need from me?"

"I needed to know how he got you into this," Mulder said, his voice softer, "But I'm not going to force it out of you, Scarlet. The Truth is important to me."

"Truth?" Scarlet's dark eyes met his. The pushing, the fear, the frustration, the whole Gordian knot of intrigue... her patience had reached its end.

She retorts, quietly, "To you, maybe this is all some kind of game. I've seen the goddamn truth, Agent Mulder. It's ugly. And someone like you probably wouldn't believe it anyway. It's like something out of the sickest nightmares of a twisted mind. If you want  _truth_ , go find it yourself. Or don't... at least that way maybe you'll be able to get a decent night's sleep before the day you die.  _I_  won't."

"Scarlet--" He grabbed for her arm as she pulled away, running from the diner, fury and terror mixed as one, her body running on pure adrenaline. She found her keys in her pocket and started her battered old Chevy, taking off like a flash.

She didn't notice the unmarked sedan across from the diner, the figure behind the wheel holding a camera with a telephoto lens. 


	6. Chapter 6

**SEPTEMBER 29, 1995**  
10:16 PM   
MOM'S DINER   
WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder stood there, impotent and lost, watching her leave. He was dizzy with the words she'd just said. She'd seen the truth, she told him, and she believed that someone like him would never believe it anyway.

She really _didn't_ know a thing about him, he concluded, watching her car pull out. He could have pursued her, but he stayed, standing beside the booth. Finally, he sat down, just as the waitress returned with the coffee and cake.

"What happened to your friend?"

"We had a fight. Women!," he said, as good-naturedly as he could. "Don't sweat it. Just leave this, I'll eat it."

The waitress nodded and smiled. "Okay."

Mulder tore into the cheesecake, his mind touching on all of the different points covered in the files he'd seen. Was she involved? How did this all link back to real life? What did Scarlet know that she believed he did not...?

That she _believed_. She _believed_... and she _believed_ that he did _not_ believe.

Mulder suddenly understood, and the knowledge was both ironic and ugly. Scarlet knew... she knew about the existence of extraterrestrial life, and she believed he would scoff at the things she believed. He knew how it felt to be in her shoes at that moment, remembered all the laughter and name-calling that accompanied his beliefs.

He closed his eyes for a long moment. She had a story, he was sure, a story something like his own.

 

 **OCTOBER 2, 1995**  
3:12 PM   
THE J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING   
WASHINGTON, DC 

Mulder and Scully returned from Skinner's office a little more tired than they'd entered. They'd spent the better part of the previous week in Amarillo, Texas, where it was still over ninety degrees in the shade.

Mulder was still convinced that the Amarillo girl's disappearance was not a simple kidnapping. The family had received no demands, no ransom requests. She'd been all of fourteen, an honor student, brilliant. She'd been advanced two grades in earlier years, so she was a junior in her high school at the time of her disappearance.

The picture of the girl's face still disturbed him; he saw rich red hair and an intelligent expression, and he thought of Scully. Some part of him linked this to the information Scarlet had passed along to him, and he didn't like the product of that equation.

Scully didn't speak; she simply walked beside him, a thoughtful expression on her face. Mulder had been rather soundly reamed for letting his personal beliefs interfere with his investigation on this case, and she didn't want to say anything that might add insult to injury. Besides, she told herself, he was bound to cheer up once they were inside the office.

Mulder held the door for his partner, and then walked to his desk, shrugging off his suit jacket. His face was painted with annoyance, but the composition of his features changed the moment he took a close look at his desk.

A manila folder was pristinely arranged at the very center of his desk, its pale surface unmarked by pen or marker or label. He ran his fingers across its surface, and then picked up it as nonchalantly as he could. He didn't want to say anything to Scully if it turned out to be something routine.

Opening the folder, he saw the Xerox of a driver's license and a passport, each of them showing blurry black-and-white images of Scarlet. They were labeled "SCARLET A. EDELMAN," and the driver's license listed the same address he knew. The listed date of birth would make her 23, which seemed about right to him.

Holy Christ, he thought, managing to keep the confusion from his face.

Carefully, Mulder flipped to the next page. It bore academic records from Georgetown University. The name and Social Security numbers matched. The grades listed were exemplary in computer-related classes and still quite good in others. She had apparently claimed her B.S. in Computer Science a year ago, and was currently working toward her Master's. A work-study program notice showed that Scarlet Edelman worked as a shift supervisor at the university's computer center.

Further into the folder, medical records were found in loving detail. A psychological evaluation, taken about the time she entered college, described her as "delusional," but went into no further detail.

At the back of the folder, he saw a few glossy photos taken of Scarlet getting into her car. She'd hate these pictures, Mulder mused, she looked a little chunky in them.

He studied the papers intently, only stopping when he heard Scully's amused voice: "Mulder? Are you still here on Earth?"

"Yeah, Scully," he said. "Sorry. Just engrossed."

Scully shot him an inquisitive gaze and said, "Mulder, are you okay? I mean, I know Skinner wasn't exactly pleased with the results we got in Amarillo, but..."

"No, it's okay, Scully..." Should I tell her?, he wondered. He looked at Dana Scully's curious blue eyes and finally said, "Here. Look at this, Scully."

She paged through the file folder, her expression even. When she reached the end, she said, "Whoever did this is very methodical. This is your informer?"

"Yeah. Scarlet. Of course, it could all be doctored." Mulder accepted the folder back and slid it into his desk. "Or completely fake. Or she could be one of those shape-shifting aliens."

Scully was tempted to retort with a sarcastic remark, but she took the high road instead, simply saying, "So go check it out, Mulder. If you want to know. I'll help, if you want..."

"Scully, I don't want you involved in this. It's too big, and it's getting ugly." He shook his head, his eyes lit with concern.

"Oh. And I'm sure I've never seen anything big or ugly," she replied, lightly.

" _When_ was your last blind date?," he countered, ducking from the legal pad she tossed at him in reply.

 

 **OCTOBER 3, 1995**  
12:34 PM   
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   
COMPUTER CENTER

Scarlet plugged in another network interface card and reset the Ethernet cable with satisfaction. Last one before lunch, she told herself, fitting the casing back onto the body of the workstation. She sang along with the Peter Gabriel tape playing in the background:

_"Don't give up, you're not beaten yet… Don't give up, somewhere there's a place, a place where we belong... Rest your head , you worry too much… Everything's gonna be all right..."_

The phone rang, its electronic trilling cutting neatly through the music. She hit the STOP button and picked up the phone. "Georgetown Computer Center. Scarlet Edelman."

"Scarlet. I need to speak with you _now_. You have been compromised." The voice was familiar, too familiar. She was learning to hate his voice.

Compromised. Oh, dear fucking God, what does _that_ mean? Scarlet felt the panic rising, crashing over her like waves as she replied, "I'll take lunch now. Just tell me where."

He provided directions. Scarlet ended the call, and then walked outside to her assistant. "Lenny? I need to take lunch. I'll be back in an hour, okay? Seventeen is broken, so don't let anyone use it yet, but Four is inside, and it's ready to go back into place."

"No prob, Red," Lenny replied lazily. He was a classic example of the Slacker incarnate, dressed in loose jeans and a flannel shirt, entering his sixth undergraduate year. "Pick me up a Mountain Dew and some Twinkies? Please?"

"Money first," she retorted, smiling. He paid up, and Scarlet headed out the door.

 

 **OCTOBER 3, 1995**  
12:51 PM   
AN UNDERPASS TO THE BELTWAY

Scarlet felt stupid picking through the garbage and loose kibble that littered the space under the highway. She wondered idly, not for the last time, why all this cloak-and-dagger crap had to happen in such scummy places.

She walked closer, and saw Mister X. He was no less intimidating by light of day. His fierce eyes met hers.

"All of your personal records have been accessed. I am still unsure by whom they were acquired. You may not be safe. I have arranged to have your things moved tonight to a safe apartment closer to your school campus, and I am going to have you guarded until I determine how badly compromised your safety might be."

"Oh, shit," she murmured.

"Astute assessment," he replied. "You're deep into it now. You have to distance yourself from Agent Mulder any way you can, or both of you might be in jeopardy. Do not take any calls from Agent Mulder until I give the word, and do _not_ give him any further information."

Scarlet nodded, her face pale and wan, the face of a frightened child.

"You finish work at four?" She nodded. "A man will meet you. He will say his name is James, and that he's here to pick you up for dinner. Act as if this is normal. He will take you to your apartment, where you will pack quickly. Then your things will be moved tonight. Pack only personal items. Leave behind the furniture. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Scarlet replied in a very small voice.

"Good," Mister X said. "Now go. Tell nobody of this."

And who am I gonna tell?, she thought defiantly as he disappeared behind a wall. She shivered as she walked back to her car, realizing that this must be the sound of a life cracking open and falling to the ground like a handful of eggs.


	7. Chapter 7

**OCTOBER 3, 1995**  
11:21 PM   
A SMALL, HIDDEN VACATION HOME OUTSIDE WASHINGTON, DC

Scarlet looked at the cozy yet impersonal bedroom. She'd only packed a suitcase full of her clothes, a single large box of books, and her computers, and she felt strangely isolated, stranded in a world not her own. She hooked up the power strip and plugged all the systems in under the watchful eye of the nameless suit who'd been designated to guard her.

She was already learning to hate this, and wondered, not for the first time, if the truth was worth all of this. If she didn't live to find the truth, what meaning would it have...?

She thought about Mulder, wondering if he'd been the one to find all the background information, or if someone else had acquired it. She wondered if she would ever be able to live a normal life again.

She cursed the fate that had taken her family and her life from her in one swift motion. She set the PCs up and slipped a disc into the CD-ROM drive of the larger machine. A bass-heavy, slow song with lots of hi-hat cymbals began to play:

_"...do you feel your head is full of thunder? Questions never end?  Empty nights alone?  No wonder it all comes back again..."_

She cranked the music, ignoring the suit seated at the other end of the room, and set up the modem cables. Losing herself in the song, and in the relaxing routine of setting up the computer, she managed not to think about her fate for a time... at least until her beeper went off.

She looked at its face. Mulder. Shit.

She turns off the sound and lays it beside the computer, typing even more frenetically. _I can't help you, Mulder,_ she thought in apology. _I can't do anything until Mister X says it's okay._

 

 **OCTOBER 3, 1995**  
11:53 PM   
MULDER'S APARTMENT

Agent Fox Mulder stared at the phone, willing it to ring. He'd called Scarlet, and normally she was very punctual about returning his calls. Now, however, it seemed she was ignoring him.

She must know that I know about her, he thought. Maybe she's angry, he reasoned. Another, smaller part of his conscience told him that perhaps she was in danger now, due to the anonymous research he'd received, and he tried not to feel guilty, and didn't succeed all too well.

He picked up the phone and dialed Scully's number. He didn't want to bother her at this hour, but he needed to hear her voice right now, to know he wasn't alone even when the air grew stale and ugly around him and his life seemed most treacherous.

She answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Scully, it's me."

"Mulder? What's wrong?," Scully asked, her voice warm with concern.

"Why do you think something's wrong?," he replied.

"You never call just to chat after eleven. What's up?"

"I'm just... It's about Scarlet. I keep thinking she's in trouble. That all this snooping around is making things dangerous for her. I mean, she kept saying to me that she didn't choose this, and there's something there that I'm not figuring out. I tried to call her and she's not calling back..."

Scully's tone was gently joking. "Maybe she's out on a _date_ , Mulder. Remember dating? She's in her early twenties. She's probably out every night. You might have beeped her in the middle of dessert."

"Or in the middle of..."

"Mulder!" Scully interrupted, knowing very well where his words were leading. Both laughed. "Seriously, Mulder. Think about it. Maybe she's just busy."

"Yeah," Mulder admitted, quietly, "I guess you're right."

"You'll get my bill in the morning. Good night, Mulder."

"Night, Scully." The sound of the connection ending was a distant one to his ears. Preoccupied, he wondered if he wasn't reading too much into the whole mess.

 

 **OCTOBER 5, 1995**  
12:46 PM   
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING   
WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder reclined in his chair, a file folder open and balanced on one hand. He shook his head periodically and chuckled, unshelling sunflower seeds and shooting their husks into a paper cup. More often than not, he made the shot.

The daily mail delivery came, and Mulder put aside his file folder and picked up the smallish bundle. The usual complement of crackpots, the usual complement of junk mail... and a single red envelope, addressed in black marker. No stamp or postmark marred the outside of the envelope.

He popped another sunflower seed into his mouth and opened it. A single sheet of red paper, folded in quarters, bore a short message: _"Hungry? 1:30! -S."_ Included was the business card for a small Tex-Mex place close to Georgetown.

He smiled slowly. Scarlet wasn't angry with him. Maybe now he could get to the bottom of this...

Mulder looked over to Scully's empty desk. She was out on some sort of errand, and he wasn't quite sure when she'd be back. He shrugged and slipped his jacket on, the warm fall weather rendering his coat unnecessary.

 

 **OCTOBER 5, 1995**  
1:27 PM   
TWO BOOTS RESTAURANT

Scarlet had managed to convince her guardian agent to get lost for a little while by telling him there was someone in the computer room she suspected of being a potential spy. He was busy checking it out while she sipped a Coke and munched on chips and salsa in the back booth, waiting for Mulder.

She didn't have to wait long. She saw the tall suited figure stepping inside, moving past the lunch crowd into the back. He sat down across from her and said, "So... what octane is the salsa here?"

"Um... high-test," she grinned back. "Look... I'm not supposed to be here, so we want to kind of be inconspicuous, okay? Just a warning, you know?"

Mulder nodded gravely. "What happened to you the other night?"

"I... I can't tell you..." Scarlet's face was writ with some sort of fear. "I couldn't call you. I was told not to. They're afraid I'm in danger..."

"So, why are you here?" His eyes met hers and she gazed back, wishing for things that had little to do with her own welfare.

Scarlet said, "I wanted to tell you the rest." Her dark eyes burn bright for a moment, and she hands him a thicker red envelope. "Take this, don't let it out of your sight. Please. And burn it when you finish reading it." Her voice was desperate.

"Scarlet," he said, quietly, "If you're in any trouble..."

 _More than you could ever know,_ she thought. "There's nothing you can do," she told him softly. "You just have to promise me one thing."

"What's that?," Mulder asked, listening.

Scarlet looked at the tablecloth, her words flooding out of her in a combination of need and embarrassment. "Believe what I'm about to tell you. All of this I'm giving you... there's a reason I found it. There's a reason I'm in this situation. I didn't want you to think I was playing games. I'm not. I didn't want in, but I'm stuck. And for some reason, I keep thinking I can trust you better than _him_. But what I gave you, what you saw – it's _all true._ "

"Scarlet," he said, his own voice a whisper, "I'll believe you." His hazel eyes captured hers, intense with his own belief, and he felt a strange sort of communion with this girl.

Scarlet's eyes went wide, and she whispered, "What parts of it?"

"All of it," Mulder told her, simply.

Scarlet blinked, and then swallowed. He believed. He believed it all... or was he mocking her, having fun at her expense? She'd been diagnosed as delusional for her belief, and he was a psychologist... maybe he was using one of his cross-examination techniques.

No, she told herself, the light in his eyes so much like hers. He couldn't fake that. Some part of her knew he couldn't fake that.

"You don't believe me," he said.

"I do now," she told him, and knew that she meant the words as she said them. "I believe. But how...?"

"I... I saw it. When I was younger..." His voice was raw now, raw with emotion. "I saw the truth for myself, Scarlet. I _know_ they are real..."


	8. Chapter 8

Fox Mulder swallowed hard, not wanting to speak the words but knowing he had to speak them. "I know it the way I know that I breathe."

Scarlet stared at his handsome face. Her brown eyes met his and melted, and somewhere inside her she wondered if there was a possibility, even a slim one, that he was the counterpart to her own beliefs in more ways than one.

"Read the letter," she told him, softly. "It explains everything. Why I believe. What I know. How I got involved in this. Everything."

She bit her lip, some of the bright-red lipstick smearing on her front teeth. Mulder leaned over with the corner of a napkin and brushed it away, unconsciously. Scarlet's lips parted in wonder.

The awkwardness of this moment was interrupted by the waitress. "Can I get you something?"

They looked at each other and laughed a bit awkwardly, and Mulder admitted, "We haven't even looked at the menu. Give us a minute?"

"Sure, hon," she said with a shrug. "However long you need."

"Tell me what's in the letter," Mulder asked, his voice velvet.

"I... It's better if you read it. When you're alone. Okay?" Scarlet flushed.

Mulder watched her and thought, why is she so embarrassed? I could understand relief, even fear, but embarrassment? His hazel eyes met hers, and after a moment, he had his answer.

Mulder smiled a slow and genuine smile.

 

 **OCTOBER 5, 1995**  
1:39 PM   
OUTSIDE TWO BOOTS RESTAURANT

The man in the car watched through the high-powered binoculars. Mulder and Scarlet, at the table, talking animatedly. They seemed to have formed a real bond, he mused, watching the girl laugh at something Mulder said.

Mister X smiled to himself. Things were going just as planned. With any luck, they would continue in the same vein.

He approved wholly, though he would never tell the girl this.

 

 **OCTOBER 5, 1995**  
9:34 PM   
IN MULDER'S APARTMENT

Mulder opened the bag and fished out the Hunan beef and vegetables, grabbing a fork from the kitchen and eating straight from the container, bachelor-style. He took a swallow off the Snapple iced tea in front of him to wash it down. He devoured the container full in record time, and then fished the envelope from his jacket.

He unfolded it and began to read, still sipping from the Snapple. Scarlet's handwriting was loopy and large, but still readable. The words flowed before his eyes:

_This is the truth, no matter what it may seem like, no matter how crazy it might seem on the outside of it._

_I know about alien life because I saw them seven years ago. In 1988, I was sixteen, sitting home with my parents on Long Island, watching a rented movie. It was "Amadeus," in case you're curious. We heard a sound in the back yard. Dad grabbed his shotgun from the closet and went out to check it out._

_He didn't come back, but we didn't hear anything. So Mom and I went to the back door, and we noticed something sleek-looking parked behind the toolshed. It was a little bit bigger than a Buick, and it was a dull grey color that blended in with the night sky. No flashing lights._

_Mom and I both screamed. I ducked and ran, but she froze in pace. I turned around just in time to see her faint. Two tall, thin figures with large head shaped like onions picked her up and carried her to the sleek-looking thing. I ran to try and stop them but as I watched, they got her inside and the thing sort of_ shimmered _. I ran to it, started beating my fists against it, but then it just... disappeared. Dematerialized, I guess._

_It was gone, and so were my parents. I was alone._

_I reported them missing to the cops. At first I said I didn't know where they went. They just went missing. After a while, they were declared dead. I inherited a little bit from them but I've used most of it up trying to hide from the law._

_I decided I would find the truth about this, find out where they were. Even if it cost me my life. I'm still looking. The stuff I gave you was only the beginning. There was a much larger archive, most of it encrypted, but I'm still working on cracking the code._

_Your friend Mister X took me in when they discovered I'd been inside government sites that were supposedly secure. How could I tell them that the guy who designed most of the cryptography software they use was my mentor in college? I coded a good chunk of the latest release. That's what I do well. Code. Not cloak-and-dagger stuff. Just code._

_X offered me a deal... I help you, he makes sure I don't get brought up on charges. That's where I came from. Please, please do not_ ever _reveal any of this to anyone. It would mean my life, but more importantly, it would mean I'd never find my parents._

The note was unsigned. Mulder needed no signature. He stared at its pages for a long time, then he walked slowly into the kitchen. He fished out a set of safety matches and set fire to each page individually, placing them in the sink and watching them burn.

When nothing was left but ash, he closed his eyes, still seeing the afterburn of her words on the back of his eyelids. Fox Mulder would never forget this moment so long as he lived. Scarlet was sane and rational, and she'd lost her parents the same way he'd lost his sister...

Strangely, he realizes, he does not think of the loss as Scarlet's fault, though he had always blamed himself for Samantha's loss.

 

 **OCTOBER 6, 1995**  
1:14 AM   
AN APARTMENT IN WASHINGTON, DC

The man smiled to himself after reading the written report. The plan had gone perfectly to his specifications. Everyone involved was working at cross purposes, and when it was all said and done, none would trust one another, Special Agent Fox Mulder would be discredited, and the X-Files division would go the way of the dinosaur, as it was meant to be.

Strangely, he gained no sadistic pleasure in watching Mulder fail. He rather liked Mulder. Had Mulder been more malleable, he would have been a good man serving a good cause, but now... now, he was an overgrown Don Quixote, tilting at windmills too large for even him to comprehend.

Sad, really. A waste of intelligence, insight, and guts. Mulder's insistence on revealing the truth would prove his downfall, the man thought. There is a lovely sort of irony in that, he observed, sipping from his bottle of beer.

Clicking the channel, he skipped to CNN. He chuckled as they discussed foreign policy. If they knew half of what we had to do to keep them safe, to give them the freedom from fear that they have... if they knew, they would destroy themselves, like lemmings.

Lemmings, he mused. An apt analogy.

He thought of the scene from the movie "A Few Good Men," and envisioned himself in the role of Colonel Nathan Jessep, who spoke of the need of secrecy, to shroud the protection of the people in a veil of silence.

He envisioned himself as a protector, now. When he was young, he'd been much like Mulder--brilliant, driven, convinced of his own rectitude. Now, he found that simply surviving was a challenge, and he lived to preserve what order remained. He liked the world around him no more than Mulder did, but he had grown resigned to it, convinced that all you could do is prevent it from becoming any worse.

And the illustrious "Mister X"... well, he'd known there was an informer in the fold somewhere. All that had remained was to find him. And now, with this situation, the man had stepped quite nicely into his role as well. Thanks to Scarlet, that ragtag child. Her talents were useful. Once she was divorced from her bond to X and Mulder, she would be a valuable asset. After all, he could reach the one piece of information she wanted.

He could have done the same for Mulder, but he'd held back that carrot, thinking the stick more appropriate first for someone as innately paranoid as Fox Mulder. And now... now, it was unlikely that Mulder would ever be in a position where he could offer that particular carrot.

Amazing, he mused, how predictable we can become if we stop thinking about survival first.

He reached for the pack of Morleys on his lap. He lit a safety match and tipped its end to the cigarette, drawing in a long inhale, and then letting it out in the space of one breath.


	9. Chapter 9

 

 **OCTOBER 9, 1995 8:02 PM**  
HICKORY HOUSE COFFEE SHOP   
WASHINGTON, DC

"So," Mulder asked Scarlet, "What'd you get?"

"Not a whole hell of a lot," she conceded. "I decrypted but it looks like there were two levels. A digital cipher plus a language code or cipher. If it's a code, it doesn't follow any logical pattern that I know."

She exhaled from her cigarette and showed him some printouts. Scarlet looked different, a deliberate disguise. Her hair was now dyed a rich auburn, she was dressed in a plain black dress--very different from her normal ratty jeans--and she wore little round glasses. As far as disguises went, it was about a 5 on a scale of one to ten. "I mean, look at this crap. It's less coherent than the sequel to 'Rocky Horror.' And not nearly as much fun."

Mulder chuckled, studying the pages. "I don't recognize the cipher. But I'm not an expert in cryptography. But I know some people who might be able to help..."

"Who?"

"Friends of mine. The Lone Gunmen."

"Oh, Christ. Not them." Scarlet rolled her eyes.

"You know them?" Mulder didn't really seem surprised. He didn't really _feel_ surprised.

"Course," she said, smiling slightly. "All us looneytunes know each other. We even have a secret handshake."

Mulder laughed, shaking his head, and quipped, "So why don't I know about it?"

Scarlet countered, "You're not cleared for that information, soldier." They both chuckled, and Scarlet gathered up the papers and her laptop.

 

 _OCTOBER 9, 1995_  
8:34 PM   
LONE GUNMEN HQ   
WASHINGTON, DC

"Scarlet!" The weasely little face peeked out from behind the Coke-bottle-bottom glasses. God, Frohicke reminded her of Waldo from that stupid Van Halen video. Scarlet stifled a snicker. "Did you change your mind about the drive-in?"

"Sorry," she quipped back. "No dice. I decided I'm gay."

"Since when?," he countered.

"Since I saw you again," Scarlet grinned back teasingly.

"You're just playing hard to get."

" _Playing_?" Scarlet just shook her head.

Mulder watched with amusement. "You know the effect you have on women, Frohicke. You should bottle that, whatever it is."

"Eau de Dweeb," Scarlet muttered, handing Mulder the papers.

"Can you guys help us out with these?," Mulder began, handing them to Byers. The suited man stroked his beard a bit, thoughtfully, and then said, "Cipher, not code?"

"Yeah," Scarlet said, "And I tried all the ciphers I knew on 'em. Nothing. Even ran them through the computer. I got diddly over squat for answers."

The three men crowded around the table, studying the paper. For a time, Scarlet just watched as they argued about which type of cipher it might be, applied keys of different known ciphers, scratched work out, began again. She opened a window and leaned outside, smoking a Marlboro.

"Those things'll kill you," Mulder said with a small smile.

"No they won't," she said, a bit distantly. "I have a feeling I won't live that long."

"Scarlet..." Mulder looked at her, chameleon eyes changing as they met her own darker ones. "I'll do what I can to help you..."

"It might not be enough," she said quietly. "What if this guy X turns out to be crooked? What if he's playing with me before he gets rid of me? How do I know I can trust him?"

"You don't," Mulder told her. "You're better off trusting nobody."

"Another nation heard from," she commented, deflecting his remark. "Don't make me any promises until you see what the information says," she told him glumly, motioning towards the table. "It might not be worth it to stick your neck out for me."

Mulder blinked, staring at her for a long moment. He was staring into a warped carnival mirror when he watched her, saw her paranoia and fear. He knew how she felt, knew there were no words to negate it.

He tried anyway. "Scarlet, you already stuck your neck out for me. God only knows why. You don't know anything about me..."

"I know you believe," she murmured. "That's about as good as it gets for me. It's like this." Scarlet held out her hand, still holding a cigarette, in an expansive gesture. The other hand disappeared into her coat. "Most people never truly _believe_ anything on faith. Most of them just sit there and rationalize. If I hold this--"

In a fraction of a moment, Scarlet pulled the hand from her coat. She held a gun by the barrel, pointed down at the floor, carefully away from Mulder. His eyes widened a bit, but her stance was non-confrontational. He remained on his guard for a moment, and then relaxed. If she'd wanted to kill him, she would have done so earlier... and certainly not in front of three witnesses.

She continues, "--and someone sees it, he just _assumes_ it's loaded. He just _has_ to assume that. Logic tells him that he can't afford to take that chance."

She placed the gun down on the windowsill. Mulder's expression did not change. Scarlet's husky murmur went on.

"But a true _believer_ , on the other hand... a true believer will convince himself it can't be loaded. Not a chance. Because he knows that this person sitting across from him--me, I mean--this person would never pull a gun on him. His belief's not based in logic, it's based on intuition. And that makes it _true_." Scarlet's eyes met Mulder's, and her voice softened. "Do _you_ think the gun's loaded?"

Mulder's voice was no less soft as he replied. "No."

She smiled a bit shyly. "You're right. I'd never pull a gun on you. Not now. Not after all this."

Mulder checked it. Unloaded. His eyes met hers once more. "That makes me a true believer?"

"Yeah. Either that or reckless," she told him with a half-smile.

"You're not the first one who's told me that," he rejoindered.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me." She sucked down the last dregs of the cigarette and stubbed it out in a paper cup filled with water. Mulder handed her back the gun, and she slid the clip back inside its chamber.

"Scarlet--" I have to tell her the truth, he told himself. I have to tell her now.

"Yeah?"

As Mulder was about to speak, he heard Byers call out. "I think we've cracked it. At least, a part of it..."

 _It'll keep,_ Mulder told himself. "Come on, Scarlet, let's go look," he said.

 

OCTOBER 9, 1995   
10:14 PM   
INSIDE MULDER'S CAR

The car was parked in one of the better known lovers' lanes just outside Washington, DC, but neither the man nor the woman inside had sex in mind.

The two of them sat, silent, working by the dashboard light, scrawling notes in red pen along the margins of the printed pages. The cipher had been a complicated one, relying on substituted phrases from the same page and line from two different books, and once the Lone Gunmen had cracked the first part, the translation went fairly easily.

Scarlet scrawled on the sheet and swallowed heavily, re-reading what she'd translated.

"Mulder, this shit's even heavier than I thought," she observed. "Look at this. Thousands of known abductions. Thousands of them--"

He nodded, still driven, trying to translate all the names. Samantha's name never came up on the list, and he did not know whether to be thankful or frustrated.

In another car, a pair of content eyes watched unblinkingly, infinitely curious but patient enough to wait for the outcome.

 

 **OCTOBER 12, 1995**  
2:12 PM   
DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT   
WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder sat in one of the molded plastic seats, waiting impatiently for the America West flight to Terre Haute to board.

Scully was over at the newsstand selecting a book for the journey; periodically, he looked up to check that she was still there. It was a habit with him ever since she'd returned; every now and again he caught himself checking to make sure she was still there.

She seemed so willing to not pry into his doings with Scarlet, he mused. That's unlike Scully. She usually wants to hear the whole story... maybe she thinks Scarlet and I are _involved_? Mulder chuckled at that thought, trying to imagine Dana Scully jealous of Scarlet. As hard as it was to imagine, some part of him considered it a wish-fulfillment fantasy and pushed it aside in favor of the reality he knew.

He mused over the deciphered text in his head. The copies had been left with Scarlet, but his perfect memory didn't need hard copy.

Scully returned, a quizzical look on her face. "You look like you're trying to answer the riddle of the Sphinx, Mulder."

"Maybe I am," he quipped back, his patented half-smile accompanying the words. "Maybe I am."


	10. Chapter 10

**OCTOBER 12, 1995**  
3:23 PM  
AN AIRPORT   
TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA

Mulder and Scully gathered their bags and headed for the car rental counter. Another compact car, Mulder groaned to himself; it was bad enough to have been dragged away from DC just when Scarlet was managing to finish most of the decryption work, but to get stuck with a Ford Aspire painted in that jaunty shade of chewing-gum-wrapper-green with an interior cabin space of 2.1 square feet...

Scully chuckled. Mulder always had this reaction to rental cars, as if he was really _surprised_ that the government refused to pay for a double upgrade just because Fox Mulder was too tall for a subcompact. The size of the car didn't bother her in the least.

She took the keys and offered, "You know, Mulder, if you hate this car so much, I can drive."

"Um. Sure. Thanks." He nodded, distracted.

Scully was very surprised. Normally, he'd have made some sort of wisecrack in return. Slipping into the passenger side, he shoved the seat back as far as it would go and scrunched in. No head room at all, he mused, but it could be worse.

"Hello. Earth to Mulder," Scully said, waving a hand in front of his face. "Are you still with us?"

"Sorry," he said, the sad half-smile that was his trademark crossing his face. "Just woolgathering."

"Scarlet," she opined, starting the car and pulling out.

"Well, not like you're thinking, probably. Scully, you _know_ I don't want to get you involved in this... it's ugly. It's bigger than even I suspected..."

Scully sighed in disgust. Mulder would never stop trying to protect her. She was convinced that in some way, he looked at her and only saw his own failure to protect his sister. "Mulder, I can handle it."

Mulder frowned. He didn't like the idea of Scully being dragged into this, but then, did he have much choice? He could _not_ tell her, but she was really the only one he trusted... and if _they_ found out, they would _assume_ Scully knew, whether she did or she didn't. Was it better to tell her or not? He thought hard about it, silent, staring out the window. Then he turned to her, slowly, his eyes lit with the terrible gravity of what he was about to reveal.

"Okay. Scully, I told you the basics. About how it was proof that the government had made an agreement with some extraterrestrial culture for a certain number of abductees to be allowed every year, so long as they were nonessential personnel..." His low, gravelly voice went on, explaining all that he and Scarlet had found: names, dates, official explanations. Bodies lost, falsified coroner's reports...

His voice did not cease until they reached their destination. By then, Dana Scully's hands gripped the wheel tightly. After the substance they'd found in the Erlenmeyer flask last year, which eventually led her to a government lab where she stole what looked like an alien embryo, then traded it for Mulder's life...

Scully swallowed hard. Three months without memories, the "purity control" experiments... the skeptic in her hated to believe what Mulder said. It defied the entire basis of modern scientific belief. But then, she'd seen it with her own eyes. Unless she was delusional, and moreover, experiencing the identical delusions Mulder was having...

Mulder half-smiled, a grim humor written deep in his features. "Yeah. I know, Scully. I know."

"But, Mulder... why didn't you tell me how far it went?" Scully's blue eyes were filled with something that tasted of betrayal, to him.

"I didn't want you to get involved. But thinking about it, I figure they're going to assume you know, whether you do or not. Scully, I want you to see all of this stuff when we get back. I want you to meet Scarlet." His eyes burned with their own mad light of sincerity. "You'll know when you see them."

Scully nodded slowly. _In for a penny, in for a dollar,_ she told herself.

 

 **OCTOBER 14, 1995**  
 6:21 AM   
WASHINGTON, DC

The man sat in his recliner, smoking another cigarette, watching the morning news. So far, Mulder had shown admirable restraint. Nothing of the story had leaked.

He was surprised, truth be told. The one young Mulder called Cancer Man smiled wryly at the thought. One never expected a loose cannon like Fox Mulder to remain so silent about things of this much gravity. He'd found his truth, or so he'd thought.

He lifted a file folder and flipped through its pages. A sticky label attached to the front spoke of the file's classified nature. He and perhaps four others had seen the contents of this file.

An X-File Mulder would never see, he thought, mildly amused. A list of names. Mulder would never know how close he'd come to the truth, once he was shut down, revealed as a crackpot who'd invented evidence and planted it carefully. They could incriminate the girl, too... that was the beauty of this maneuver. It sewed everything up neatly.

His finger ran along the list of known abductees:

**EDELMAN, ISAAC  
EDELMAN, JANICE**

Further down, he found the name he was looking for:

**MULDER, SAMANTHA**

The man frowned a bit. He would have been just as happy to present Mulder with this information in reward for silence, but no, Mulder was not the sort to accept back-room bargains, even if it meant his sister's life. He was far too principled.

The man snorted. Principle faded under threat of death, often. Mulder's had yet to fade. Perhaps that was why he liked the man so much, was willing to go to so much trouble to simply discredit him rather than kill him outright. Truly worthy opponents were rare, and when one had played the game as long as he had, one came to treasure a fresh approach, a strong will and strong mind like Mulder's. Not like that mewling little sycophant Krychek, he thought, very amused now.

Someday, Mulder would come back and offer a _real_ challenge, or he would fade into insignificance, a broken man. Either way, his purpose would be served. If Mulder won someday... well, more power to him, the man thought, stubbing out his cigarette and drinking the dregs from his coffee cup.

He told himself, there are worse ways to die than at the hands of an able opponent.

 

 **OCTOBER 14, 1995**  
 10:49 PM  
DULLES AIRPORT WASHINGTON, DC

Dana Scully grabbed her bag from the carousel and watched as Mulder shouldered his own.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Sure," he said. "Can you just drop me at the Blarney Stone?" He smiled boyishly. "I have a ride waiting there."

"Is that safe?," she asked. "Meeting so publicly?"

"It's the 'Purloined Letter' method, Scully. Hiding in plain sight." His broad shoulders rose in a shrug. "Besides, we're not going to talk about anything there. She has a car."

"Why don't you both come over to my apartment and let _me_ in on it? Maybe I can help..." She raised one slender eyebrow.

"Maybe... Scarlet's a bit jumpy about people she doesn't know, but I don't see as it's a problem. I'll ask her."

"Do that," she said. "You promised me you weren't going to shut me out of this anymore, Mulder. I'm your partner..."

"I know you are, Scully. And... thanks." The patented half-smile reappeared. She pulled up in front of the bar and said, with a small smile, "That'll be five-fifty."

Mulder chuckled and got out of the car. "See you later, Scully."


	11. Chapter 11

 

 **OCTOBER 14, 1995**  
11:17 PM  
WASHINGTON, DC

The man known as X walked down a long corridor. This corridor was very familiar to him; he'd walked this corridor many times before. The room where Scarlet had been questioned was at the end of the hall, the room where they'd kept the man of dark matter was further down, and if he turned a corner and followed another hallway, his own office was there. He smiled a bit grimly. Sometimes a man had to dirty his hands to keep the world safe from some kinds of truth, but sometimes, the time came for a man to let the truth free.

This discovery had turned something inside Mister X, changed him. The facts found by Scarlet Edelman had shaken the foundations of his belief. He'd known of many of the terrible things that the government had done in the name of secrecy, but this... this was tantamount to slavery, selling human souls into lives in experimental laboratories, guinea pigs to alien scientists.

He'd seen the words Scarlet had found, the lists of facts, and some part of him knew their truth. He'd checked all the names, and every one of them had been a missing person. The dates matched. The places of abduction matched disappearances. Everything matched.

He reached his office and sat down at the desk once more. He'd received an anonymous tip, telling him to return to the office tonight. Lifting a file, a folded sheet of yellow, lined paper fluttered out, landing on his lap. Immediately wary, he slipped it into a pocket, and then brought it into the bathroom.

Opening its folds, he saw a few short words that chilled his blood, typed on an old manual typewriter:

**STEP BACK FROM MULDER. LET HIM FAIL ON HIS OWN.**

Mister X stared at the note, wondering who could have known, wondering how this was discovered. Had the girl turned on him? No, he thought, she'd been under his eye since the beginning, and she and Mulder had bonded fairly well.

Then who?

The only person who could have found out came to mind, and he tore the note to tiny pieces. Deliberately, painstakingly, he flushed them wrapped in wads of tissue.

 

 **OCTOBER 14, 1995**  
11:18 PM  
THE BLARNEY STONE TAVERN   
WASHINGTON, DC

In the dim light, Mulder had a terrible time trying to pick out Scarlet inside the smoky, packed tavern. After a time, he caught her eye: her hair was still the deep auburn-red she'd dyed it, the small glasses were perched on her nose, and she was wearing a little grey mini-dress that looked very cute on her.

Despite the circumstances, he caught himself appraising her, and then shook his head. _Christ, Mulder_ , he told himself, _get a grip._

Scarlet looked up from her pint of stout and spotted him right away. Something about that little-boy-lost expression made her feel a bit wobbly for a moment, but then she shook the feeling away. _What the fuck am I thinking?,_ she wondered, _he's probably got some totally gorgeous babe somewhere. Tall. Blonde. Dressed in perfect L. L. Bean. Or something. And with really big..._

Her thought was interrupted by his voice. "Hi," he said, sliding into the booth, across from her. "How are you doing?"

"Hangin' in there. It ought to tell you something about my social life that it's Saturday night and I'm here being a good hacker instead of out partying 'till I puke." She half-smiled and motioned towards the glass. "I've been nursing this puppy since ten thirty."

"Not hard to do. Guinness?" She nodded. "Pretty powerful stuff."

"Yeah. So... how was the midwest?" Her voice stayed casual through an effort of will.

"Same as it always is," he countered. "The case... well, I can't really talk about the details of the case, but my partner and I are _still_ having trouble agreeing on how it happened. As usual," he remarked. "She's a firm believer in the scientific method."

Even as he said the words, though, they felt odd coming from him--disloyal, somehow.

 _A gorgeous partner_, Scarlet amended mentally. _Figures._ "Hey, there's something to be said for the scientific method. I'm not a _total_ fruitcake. I believe that everything has a reason and a cause, but I'm also a firm believer in Occam's razor. It's easier for me to believe what I do than to discount it as a hallucination, because believing is the simpler explanation. Plus, I have proof that it's happened before, now."

Mulder nodded, just listening. She was so close to his own mind, it was almost eerie sometimes.

"She wants to meet you. Her place is safe. She *knows.* I just wanted... I wanted to introduce you to her. I trust her."

"Implicitly?" Scarlet asked, her voice quavering a bit.

"With my life," Mulder told her.

Scarlet nodded slowly. "Okay."

 

 **OCTOBER 14, 1995**  
11:55 PM  
DANA SCULLY'S APARTMENT WASHINGTON, DC

Scarlet followed Mulder up the stairs, her laptop case slung over one shoulder. Damn him for being so tall and so fast, anyway. She trudged along resolutely, as quickly as she could.

At the top of the landing, he waited. "Hey, I'm sorry, did you want me to slow down?"

"That'd be nice. Not everyone's a friggin' giant, you know. I have short legs," she growled, not without humor.

Mulder laughed. What Scarlet had just said was a cruder form of similar things Scully had said over the time he'd known her. They were going to hit it off famously. Maybe.

"Sorry," he said, taking the next flight more slowly.

Once they reached the door, Dana Scully opened it, having heard their approach. Scarlet walked up to the door and blinked. Hard. This tiny little woman, even shorter than Scarlet, was the one? Shit! She wasn't even blonde, and she was wearing glasses, and... Jesus.

Scully stared back. This intelligent-looking young woman didn't look the least bit like a computer hacker. When she thought of hackers, she always thought of the Lone Gunmen, geeks to a one.

"Can we come in, or are you two going to stare at each other like you're on a blind date?," Mulder interrupted.

"I'm sorry. Come in," Scully said, moving aside to let them through. "I'm Dana Scully."

"Scarlet..." She stopped, looked at Mulder, looked at Scully, then figured, fuck it. They could find out who I am even without the last name. "Scarlet Edelman. Pleased to meet you." She held out a hand to Dana, who shook it firmly but not with excess force.

"So you're Mulder's mystery informant." Scully hated the words the minute they emerged from her mouth. That sounded dumb, Dana, she told herself.

Scarlet chuckled. "No mystery here. Just someone who stumbled across something huge."

Scully led them both to the kitchen, and Scarlet pulled a sheaf of papers from her case. Coffee was passed all around.

Scarlet went on. "Ummm... I managed to finish a good chunk of the rest. Some of it makes no sense." She handed the stack of papers to Mulder. "A bunch of cryptic stuff that was ciphered within a cipher. I'd guess it's locations or contact names or something. That'd be the most sensitive parts of this."

The papers made the rounds of the table. None could make heads nor tails of the information at the end of the file. Scully thought it over and said, "I know someone at Quantico that might be able to do something with this. He can be trusted to keep it quiet."

"Are you _sure_?," Mulder asked.

"Yes," she asserted. "He was one of my students. He told me any time I needed a favor, he'd help. And he's an expert in codes and ciphers."

Scarlet said, softly, "Just please don't tell him where you got it. Or give him the rest of the file. Please."

Scully replied, in a slightly arch tone, "I wasn't intending to tell him anything more than that it was coded information that I needed to decode."

Scarlet shot Scully a frown but said nothing.

Mulder looked away for a moment. So much for the two of them hitting it off famously. "So... maybe we should go over this again after your friend's has a chance to decipher it."

"All right. I'll bring it to him tomorrow. I'll see you at work Monday, Mulder, unless I find something sooner." She turned to the younger woman. "It was nice meeting you, Scarlet."

"You too," Scarlet said, politely. She packed up her laptop and said, "Want me to go wait in the car for a minute?"

"Yeah. Thanks," Mulder said. Scarlet left, closing the door softly behind her. He turned to his partner, and noted, "She wasn't trying to insult you, Scully. She's just in a bad position right now. She's entitled to be a little bit paranoid with all that's going on around her."

"If so, then so am I. It still strikes me as awfully convenient that she found all this and got sent to you. I want to get to the bottom of this."

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
3:45 AM   
OUTSIDE MULDER'S APARTMENT

Scarlet sat on the hood of her car, her jacket under her, her head tilted back, looking at the winter night sky.

Mulder's voice reached her ears: "When I was a kid, I used to do this. Just sit and stare up at the sky and wonder what was out there. I haven't done that in a long time."

Should I tell her now?, he wondered. Does she need to know? Doesn't she _deserve_ to know? She might be the one person who's willing to give me the key to the truth.

"I did, too," she told him, her eyes, still on the heavens. Perched atop the car like this, she was just about eye level with Mulder, but she carefully wasn't looking at him. "I wanted to be an astronomer when I was little. I had a telescope and everything. After what happened, though..."

Her eyes moved to his, then; she found herself almost drowning. She forced herself to keep talking. "After what happened, I kind of felt weird about it. I wanted to find answers, and that wasn't the way."

Mulder blinked. She'd said almost exactly what he'd felt, himself, on so many different occasions. He wanted to tell her, then, but didn't dare interrupt her at so crucial a moment in her revelations. The psychologist in him knew it would be terrible timing.

"You're the first person I met who doesn't laugh at me," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Ever since it happened, everyone thinks I'm a looneytune. But I'm not. You know I'm not. You believe me."

Mulder nodded, patient, waiting, listening.

Scarlet looked down at her hands in her lap. Her eyes closed slowly. The ragged whisper returned: "It's terrifying being so alone in what you know, believing the things nobody else does. It's been so awful living with this all by myself all this time..."

He wanted to speak now, was about to tell her how he understood, how he knew what she was feeling. He thought of Samantha, and his eyes closed against the pain for just a moment.

The next thing he felt was her soft lips against his own, her hands lightly resting on his shoulders. This small intimacy nearly floored him. Of all the things he'd expected from Scarlet, this hadn't even made the top ten.

Her mouth felt warm and sweet on his, and just as he was about to recover from surprise and respond more fully, she pulled away, releasing him. She slipped down from the roof of the car and pulled her jacket on. He didn't need to be a psychologist to tell she was using it as a form of psychic armor.

"I better go," she said, refusing to meet his gaze.

"Scarlet, it's okay..."

"I... please, I..." She stumbled over the words, and Mulder could tell she wasn't ready to deal with this yet. "I'm sorry," she said, slipping into the car as he watched, speechless.

"Scarlet--"

When she looked up, her dark eyes were shiny, wet. Without a word, she started the engine and pulled away, his own eyes tracing the car's path.

I should have told her, he thought to himself, angrily. I should have made her stay long enough to listen.

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
12:12 PM  
MULDER'S APARTMENT

The horrible ringing sound echoed in his ears. It seemed like part of a nightmare until he found the phone with his weary fingers. Lifting the receiver, he groaned, "Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me," Scully's voice said. "How soon can you meet me? It's important."

Mulder's eyes popped open. He'd only fallen asleep after "Davey and Goliath" had ended. Sunday morning television was enough to put any insomniac to sleep, even after a night like he'd had.

"On my way, Scully. Forty minutes."

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
1:05 PM   
SCULLY'S APARTMENT

Mulder looked like hell, she noted, despite the clean clothes and damp hair. A shower hadn't done him any good at all. His hair was tousled and limp, and there were terrible dark circles under his eyes.

Ignoring that, Scully opened the door and let him in. She placed a cup of coffee in front of him, wanting him fully awake for what she was about to say. He looked as if he'd driven over in a daze.

He sipped the coffee and said, "Okay, Scully, what did you get?"

"Mulder," she said, evenly. "It was faked. All the information is in the databases, but it was dumped to the computer core a month ago. There were no logs of incremental usage. My friend checked this out with the head of computer security at Quantico after he deciphered this."

She handed him the sheets of paper, wordlessly. He looked at the logs of data entry; all of it was within two months.

"The photos. He and I went over the photos, and then we got in an expert. There was no way those photos were real, Mulder. Their resolution was too high for their supposed dates of exposure. The state of the art wasn't nearly that good, back then. It looks like some of these were built with photo retouching and some with digital imaging. But none of them are real."

She dropped the final bombshell: "We checked the names on this list against a list of missing persons for the past thirty years. Every one of them matched. That's too much correlation, Mulder. Too much by several orders of magnitude. It looks like someone just took as many identities as he could find and core-dumped every piece of data on them into this file, then tied them together with false reports and photos."

"But the dates on the computer files matched..." Mulder said, weakly.

"Ask Scarlet how easy it is to falsify a date on a computer," Scully said gently. "Mulder, I think they expected you to go public with this, and I think they planned to discredit you. I don't know if Mister X is in on it, or if Scarlet is, but if I were you, I'd destroy everything before they find a way to catch you in the act of investigating this and get their wish."


	12. Chapter 12

**OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
 1:14 PM  
SCULLY'S APARTMENT

"Mulder, I think they expected you to go public with this, and I think they planned to discredit you. I don't know if Mister X is in on it, or if Scarlet is, but if I were you, I'd destroy everything before they find a way to catch you in the act of investigating this and get their wish."

Mulder stared at Scully in shock. He'd been led astray. He no longer knew who to trust, aside from Dana Scully. It had all been falsified. A lie... a sham.

He was so furious, he didn't hear his cellular phone ringing inside his jacket. Scully pointed to the phone and he blinked, then slid it out of the pocket.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder, I have been trying to reach you since yesterday." The deep voice was very familiar. "I need to meet you immediately. It is a matter of dire urgency."

"You bet your ass it is," Mulder growled back.

Mister X did not rise to the bait. "Meet me the same place we met last time. Alone."

"I'll be there." Mulder disconnected. "Scully, I need to go..."

"If you're meeting someone, I'm coming," she told him.

"He said to come alone," Mulder replied.

"He might be the one who's setting you up, Mulder. I don't think you should go alone." But Mulder was already on his feet, snatching his coat from the back of the chair and heading toward the door. "I'll call you later, Scully. I'll be back, I promise. Just let me handle this one."

He didn't wait for a reply. Scully fumed, and then grabbed her own jacket. One way or another, she was going to find out what happened.

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
1:36 PM  
THE MACY'S PARKING LOT WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder stepped out of the car. He felt about as good as he looked at the moment, which wasn't saying much. He ran a hand through his still-wet hair and walked to the loading dock.

The man was there, as expected. Alone.

"Agent Mulder," he said, in that low, sinister voice, "The information you received from Scarlet is false. We were led into a trap. There are those who believed you had help from other sources. Now they have found me out. This is the last contact I will have with you."

The man's jaw set. He was no less furious than Mulder.

Mulder felt his anger at the man cooling a bit. He sounded like he was telling the truth... then again, how many times had he been taken in by ones who sounded like they spoke the truth? "Who's behind it?"

"You _know_ who's behind it, Agent Mulder, if you look hard enough. You and I have been played as pawns. I suspect that Scarlet has as well, though I have not yet spoken to her. I did not want to risk her safety by going to her safehouse, in case she was innocent."

Mulder thought about Scarlet's lack of talent for subterfuge, and said, quietly, "I don't think she was in on it. I think she just got sucked into it."

"I cannot help you any longer. I may have to disappear for a time. Goodbye, Agent Mulder. Watch your back." The man turned and walked away, his stance angry and careful.

Mulder's eyes followed the man as he left, heedless of the car parked nearby, its driver watching his every move. He stepped back to his own car and pulled out the cellular phone, dialing Scarlet's pager.

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
 1:38 PM  
SCARLET'S SAFEHOUSE   
JUST OUTSIDE WASHINGTON, DC

The young woman stared at her screen, trying to lose herself in the intricacies of the 'net. She didn't want to think about last night, or Agent Fox Mulder, or anything. She simply wanted to curl up and die for a little while until the embarrassment blew over.

 _What a stupid fucking move,_ she told herself. _Why'd you do that, schmuck? Wanted to see if he was hot for you? Well, I guess that answered your question. If he liked short, smart ones, he'd be doing the wild thing with old Doc Scully. And she's a whole lot prettier than me, too. Goddamnit. So why do I give a fuck? Because he's sweet and cute and he doesn't think I'm a lunatic?_

She heard the obnoxious noise of the pager, picked it up and saw Mulder's number. She closed her eyes, swallowing hard, and resolved not to call him back. The #911 appended to the end was supposed to make her call immediately...

 _Yeah,_ she thought sardonically, _maybe he wanted to give you the "You're too young for me" speech. Or the "Gee, this isn't going to work," speech. Fuck you, Mulder. I'm not up for it right now._

The phone rang. Scarlet reached for it tentatively, knowing Mulder didn't have this number.

It was Mister X. "Scarlet, we have been played for fools. Pack your things and you'll be moved to a temporary location. This place is no longer safe for you."

"What?" She could barely believe her ears.

"You heard me. Pack. We will find a safe haven for you..."

"No. Fuck that," she replied with a bravado she didn't feel. "I'll find my own safe place, thanks. I've had enough of this cloak and dagger shit for one lifetime."

"This is a very dangerous time to go it alone, Scarlet..." the voice warned.

"It's been nice knowing you, pal. Not. Take care." She hung up the phone and tore into her things. She shoved the clothes into the huge army duffle, then disconnected both computers and lugged them to the car, cables trailing.

Locking all of her possessions in the trunk, she started the car. The motor turning over was the sound of a woman's life ending.

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
2:18 PM  
MULDER'S APARTMENT

Mulder drove back to Scully's place, swearing under his breath. Scarlet wasn't calling him back. Either she'd been taken, or she was part of the conspiracy.

She buzzed him in. Once he reached the apartment door, Scully practically dragged him inside. "What happened?"

"He's not in on it," Mulder said. "I can't reach Scarlet."

Scully's lips twisted into a frown. Somehow, she should have expected the girl was a plant. "What do you think?"

"I think either she was taken already, or she's in on it." Mulder hated to think about that second possibility; she'd seemed so innocent, so unschooled at that sort of thing, that some part of him refused to believe that she would do such a thing to him.

"Let's find her," Scully said.

Mulder considered this, then said, "All right. But let's split up, we can cover more territory. We know she works on the Georgetown campus. I know some places where she hangs out. Why don't you check out the campus and I'll check out the hangouts, and we'll meet back at the office at around five?"

"All right," she said. "But _call_ me if you find anything."

"I will. You do the same." They went to their respective cars, off to find Scarlet.

 

OCTOBER 15, 1995  
 4:02 PM  
MULDER'S APARTMENT

Scarlet waited inside the apartment, feeling stupid. She'd already loided the door, they way she'd read about in books. There was nobody in his apartment, and she wondered if he'd gone out looking for her.

 _Wishful fucking thinking,_ she told herself sourly. _Like Mulder's going to ever want to see me again after that thing I pulled last night._ She reconsidered, thinking about his phone call to her, and wondered if he'd been the one to turn her in.

 _But it makes no goddamn sense,_ she thought, _no goddamn sense at all. Why would he have let me get so close?_

She sighed, and considered moving back to the car. She'd already checked Dana Scully's place, and nobody was there. Maybe at Mulder's office...?

After a moment, the phone rang. She froze for a moment, but the answering machine picked it up. Dana Scully's voice filled the room: "Hi, Mulder, it's me. No luck finding her yet. I just figured I'd let you know in case you stopped back here before I saw you at the office. Bye."

Scarlet felt electric adrenaline fill her. She left the apartment, knowing her next destination. She started the motor again and headed for the building, squirming a bit in the seat. She felt weighted down and heavy, but shrugged. It was a necessity.

She looked to the gun on the seat beside her. At long last, she was about to _do_ something, escape from the cage in which she'd been placed. She was going to find the truth if it killed her.

The plan pieced itself together in her mind as she drove.

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
4:51 PM  
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING WASHINGTON, DC

Mulder pulled into the nearly-empty parking lot. He'd found nothing, and some part of him wondered if Scarlet had betrayed him. She had no reason to be loyal to him, after all... he was just another Fed to her.

He thought about her mouth on his, the night before, and the suspicions fell to pieces. Maybe she was just as much a victim of this as he was. She couldn't have faked that kiss _and_ the embarrassment afterward. Not a chance.

He pulled his briefcase from the back seat, and didn't notice as the figure in black slipped behind him in the twilight and hit him over the head with something hard.

Mulder hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Scarlet looked down at him, her hands shaking. This was going to be scary, she told herself, but it was the only way. She'd be chased for the rest of her life if she ran. There was no other way. This had to end now, and this was the only way she knew to end it neatly.

She waited. She knew Scully would show up eventually... and then the game would end.

Mulder didn't stir.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to his unconscious form, "Someday you'll understand."

 

 **OCTOBER 15, 1995**  
5:07 PM  
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING WASHINGTON, DC

Dana Scully pulled into the parking lot. The first thing she saw was Mulder's car, which didn't seem so odd, until she pulled closer, seeing the form on the ground and the girl in jeans crouching over him.

Scarlet. And Mulder.

Scully hit the brakes and cut the engine, hurling herself out of the car, gun in hand. Scarlet looked up, raising the handgun to bear on Mulder's head. He remained on the ground, unconscious, less than five feet from her.

Scarlet's voice was calm. "I've got a deal for you, Agent Scully. Let me go free, or I'll shoot him."

Scully's voice was shaky, but firm. "Put _down_ the gun, Scarlet. We can talk this over." She began to circle the car slowly, moving closer.

"Put down yours and let me go," Scarlet retorted.

Dana Scully's hands stayed steady around the gun. She answered, as calmly as she could, "I can't do that. Put down the gun, Scarlet. You're not helping anyone by doing this."

Mulder's eyes opened at that moment. He saw Scarlet with the gun and remembered the words she'd spoken: 'I'd never pull a gun on you. Not now. Not after all this.' He knew at that exact moment that the gun was not loaded.

"Scarlet! Listen to me, I know it's not l--"

Scarlet responded by squeezing the trigger tightly. Mulder turned to Scully, who raised her own gun. He called, "Scully, DON'T!--"

Scarlet's finger mashed the trigger down firmly. Scully opened fire at the same moment that an empty click emerged from the barrel of Scarlet's gun. The sound of shots ring through the air. The barrel of Scully's gun smoked with the velocity of the shot.

Mulder's shocked expression was frozen in place: "--it's not--"

One, two, three shots, neat ones to Scarlet's chest. The loose black shirt bore ragged holes, but the dark color allowed no blood to show. The hand holding her gun was flung back hard as she was sent spinning backward, her body flung several yards away.

Mulder's voice dropped to a low monotone. "--loaded." He tried to stand. Scully turned to him, her lips parted in shock.

Scarlet's face was serene, her mouth closed, lips curled into a smile--a peaceful one. She crumpled like a ragdoll, curled in around herself.

Scully rushed to Mulder's side. "Mulder, are you all right?"

His voice was dull and quiet, filled with deadly certainty. "It wasn't loaded, Scully. She wouldn't have shot me."

"She said she was going to shoot--"

"Check her gun," he demanded quietly.

Scully slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. She picked up the gun, dropped when Scarlet had spun away from them. She didn't need to check the chamber, even--the lack of heft was enough to tell her that Mulder was telling the truth.

"Scully... what do we do with her?," Mulder asked.

Scully considered this. She knew she should go over and examine the woman herself, but she felt a strange, atypical squeamishness. She was a doctor, and the thought of coldly examining the corpse of someone she'd killed made her blood run cold.

An ambulance pulled up shortly thereafter.

"We heard there were gunshots over the police band--," an EMT stepped out. He took one look at Scarlet and whispered, "Holy shit."

Lifting the body to a stretcher, the EMT muttered to his partner, "No hurry, man. She's a complete goner."

"I wonder why she did that," Mulder said, in the same soft terrible voice. "She didn't want to hurt me, Scully." He regretted never telling her about his own past, now. He wondered, somewhere deep inside himself, if he could have prevented this early on. He was left staring at the skies, grieving a young woman he'd barely known, wondering.

It is only after the van pulled away that Dana Scully noticed that there was no blood left behind. 


End file.
